Rate Increase Shows Strong Economy

The Federal Reserve raised its key interest rate by 0.25 percentage point on Wednesday.

The move was widely expected after last week’s strong jobs report and Fed Chair Janet Yellen’s comments that a rate hike was “appropriate.”

“The simple message is the economy is doing well,” Yellen said in a press conference. “We have confidence in the robustness of the economy and its resilience to shocks.”

The Fed’s expectations for GDP growth increased slightly to 2.1 percent in 2018, while forecasts for unemployment remained mostly the same, with officials expecting the rate to fall to 4.5 percent by 2019.

Fed officials have stated they expect to make three quarter-point increases in rates during 2017.

The rate increase is not expected to affect the availability of credit for RV dealers. In fact, in an interview in late 2016 with RV PRO, Tim Hyland, president of Wells Fargo Commercial Distribution Finance’s Recreation/Specialty Vehicle Group, predicted a quarter-point increase that took place in December as well as another early in 2017, which just happened.

“You see a lot of stability in numbers right now,” Hyland said at the time. “There really isn’t any bumpiness outside of geopolitical events and certainly the presidential election. These are things that are cause for concern, but not big needle movers in and of themselves.”